by L.J. Hayward
Chapter 35
“Hawkins?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Erin checked the card again, making sure she’d called the right number.
“Hello?” she tried again.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Now it was her turn to go quiet. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. Didn’t know why, when the card had been handed over by a curious nurse, she’d asked for a phone. She held the phone awkwardly. Her left arm was bandaged from elbow to wrist, her right invaded by a huge cannula feeding her a second bag of packed red cells. The doctor had told her there was a third one waiting to be hung as well. Three bags of blood to replace what had been lost through a relatively minor wound in her arm. He was baffled and had ordered a ream of blood work to test her clotting factors. And when the blood was all finished, they’d start with the antibiotics.
“Erin?”
He sounded concerned. Or strained. Or maybe disinterested. She didn’t know him well enough to even guess. She’d begun to believe he was a decent guy. Not just anyone would throw themselves into the path of that much danger. That had to mean something, didn’t it? Perhaps it only meant that he was some sort of adrenaline junky, and instead of base jumping he hunted extreme prey. Maybe he got off on the danger, on the violence—on the pain.
“Jesus, Erin, I’m really sorry. It was wrong. I should never have done it. But…”
“Is she okay?” Erin didn’t know where the question came from. It could have been concern for another living creature, but were vampires alive? Or it could have been a morbid desire to know if it had been worth it.
“She’s… healing.” His voice cracked on the two words. “It’s going to be tough for her to recover.”
What did that mean to Erin? This girl, this creature, had saved her life several times. Only because it had been endangered by Hawkins in the first place. Though, in his defence, it was mostly because of Veilchen and the mysterious stolen property. Was it Mercy? She wasn’t so sure now. Mercy was definitely no longer part of the known and understood world. She was something else, something vastly outside of Erin’s realm of perception. Did Veilchen know what Mercy was? Or was she just looking for Susan Grayson? The link of pale skin seemed so tenuous now. Hawkins had slapped down her mad thoughts of Veilchen also being a vampire. Veilchen was very active throughout the day and apparently vampires weren’t.
“I think,” Hawkins continued, tone soft and strained, “she would have died without you, Erin. It doesn’t excuse what I did though. I was not in my right mind. I’m very sorry.”
Erin moved her arm to look at the bandages around the wound. The medical experts assured her that, for a dog bite, it was very clean and neat. She was certain that at least one of the nurses in the emergency department believed it wasn’t a dog bite. Two holes, precise and deep, a curving arc between them of other impressions in her skin where something had pressed down but not broken the skin, bruising only. It looked nothing like a dog bite. It looked like a human bite with extras.
“They don’t believe me,” she said into the silence.
“About?”
“The dog. I told them what you said to say, and they pretended to accept it, but they don’t. And I don’t blame them.”
He breathed out a soft, resigned laugh that was more bitter than anything else. “I figured that. I don’t blame them either. But if there’s one thing I’ve discovered, it’s that human beings have an amazing skill for self-delusion. They won’t believe you at first, but when they start looking into the situation, when they start to gather the facts and find that they don’t slot happily into a preconceived idea of what should have happened, they’ll start to wonder. What’s before their eyes doesn’t follow the rules, but maybe this is the exception that proves it. Sometimes, Occam cuts himself with a blunt razor and that’s just the way the shit falls. It’ll become so strange to them that it simply reinforces their belief in all things good and normal and this incident will just become a puzzling memory.”
Not so long ago, two days to be precise, Erin would have been one of those people, and happy to be so. This knowledge, these things she’d seen and felt, were a weight she didn’t want. There was too much shit in her life already, too many ‘why me?’ questions, too many ‘it isn’t fair’ wails. She wouldn’t let this invade her life as well.
“What sort of gun did you have last night?” she asked.
There was a speculative pause, then he said, “Barretta Cougar, nine mil.”
“I’ll tell the police I lost it. They’re bound to find it at the park. I’ll get some slack for having an unregistered weapon but I know how to get around the rest. There’ll be a fine and I’ll pass it and the gun along to you when I get it back. Until then, and after then, I don’t want to see or speak to you again. The case is dropped.”
“What about your client?”
“I won’t tell her about you. I won’t give her your number. She can do whatever the fuck she pleases, otherwise. If she finds you on her own, good luck.”
“Erin,” he said quickly, desperate in case she hung up.
“What?”
Another long silence. She could hear him breathing on the far end of the line. It sounded harsh, fast.
“Matthew? Are you okay?”
“Heh. Ah, sort of.” He pulled in a long gulp of air and eased his rapid breathing. “Got a little damaged last night. I’ll be fine, though.”
“Your knee?”
There was a touch of something lighter in his tone when he answered, something closer to how he’d been when they first met. “You know too much about me, ma’am. Yeah, the knee. I’ll get over it.”
Erin clamped her mouth shut on the questions she wanted to ask. It would sound too much like concern, and she didn’t want to feel that for him. She just wanted him out of her life.
“Was there something else?” Her voice was terse, not how she’d intended it.
“I… I just wanted to let you know, in case you were worried, that nothing more will happen with the… bite. You won’t, you know, change. It was just a bite, nothing else.”
Her stomach clenched for a moment. She hadn’t even considered it. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Goodbye.”
She hung up before he could say anything more.
It was a relief. The case was over. She hadn’t wanted it in the first place and now it was done. Veilchen could swear and curse all she wanted, she could go running to Sol with a sob story and Sol could fire her. Right now, she didn’t care. Though she knew that when she got past this scared numbness, she would panic about losing her job. How would she support William then?
She was dialling home before she thought about it.
“Hello?”
“Kate?”
“Erin! Oh my God, we saw the news this morning. That was you, wasn’t it? Oh dear, are you okay? They said you’d been taken to hospital.”
Erin didn’t want this. She didn’t want them to know. The less who did would make it easier for her to forget.
“Did William see it?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“No. He had some trouble this morning, very early.”
Heart stuttering in fear, Erin demanded, “What happened? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, Erin. It’s all right. He’s fine now. It was just a little fall on the way to the bathroom. He took some of his painkillers and he’s asleep now. It’s all good.”
She nearly dropped the phone in relief. “Oh, God. Thank you, Kate, for being there.”
“Honey, it’s okay. We don’t mind. You know we’d do anything we could for you and Bill. Now, how are you? Are you okay?”
Sniffing back a few tears, Erin said, “Yeah, I’m fine. I will be. I don’t know how long the doctors will want to keep me in here. Hopefully not overnight. But either way, you and Gavin won’t have to stay with William for much longer. The case I was on that was keeping me away is over now. I’ll be coming home.”
Kate’s voice
hitched. “That’s great. Bill’s missed you so much.”
Erin bit her lips to keep from blurting out something completely embarrassing. “Thank you,” was all she managed.
There was a knock at the door. A huge bunch of native flowers stood in the doorway on a pair of legs that looked familiar. A little laugh escaped Erin.
“Kate, someone’s here. I have to go. Tell William I’ll be home soon.”
“I will. Gavin will come pick you up if you need.”
“I should be fine. I’ll let you know. Bye.” She hung up. “Come in, Ivan.”
He came in cautiously, peering around the flowers, face creased by a worried frown. “How you feeling?”
“Better now.”
Ivan cleared a spot on the table and set the flowers down. Erin was surprised the table supported the weight. There had to be just about every known native flower in the bunch. Bright petals and mellow scent exploded out of it in a stunning array of colour.
“How many first born kids did you ransom to afford that?” she asked Ivan.
He stood back, looking at the flowers with a bit of embarrassment. His foot actually scuffed the floor. “Yeah, it is a bit OTT, isn’t it?”
“But lovely. Thank you.”
After a moment of shrugging and nodding, he gave in and hugged her tightly. Erin couldn’t return it without upsetting cannulas and bandages, so she rested her head against his shoulder, simply grateful for the kind, human touch.
“You keep doing this to me lately,” Ivan muttered when he let her go. “Scaring the life out of me.”
Erin smiled, sadly. “How long were you at the door?”
“Long enough. The case is over?”
“Dropped, but not complete.”
Ivan pulled up a chair and sat down. “I’m glad to hear that, but what will Sol say?”
“Probably ‘you’re fired’. To me, not you,” she added when his face collapsed. It didn’t help, though.
“But I don’t want you to get fired. I don’t want to work with anyone else.”
“Maybe he won’t. There’s a million to one chance he might understand the circumstances and let this one slide.”
“Heh, yeah. Maybe.” Ivan looked over her wrapped up arm. “So, you took down a big, bad dog, huh? That’s what all that werewolves stuff was about?”
“Yeah.” When his eyes widened, Erin decided he didn’t need to know the truth. “Well, the kid thought ‘werewolf’ but it wasn’t that. They don’t exist, of course. Just a… bad dog. Or sick. Who knows.”
Ivan chewed that over, nodding slowly. “And our mysterious Hawkins didn’t show up?”
This was a little trickier. Erin considered denying it, but that would present more problems later, and Ivan was good at keeping things confidential.
“He was there,” she said softly. “But we don’t want the authorities to know, okay.”
“Why not? Did he do something illegal?” Unspoken was the further question ‘Did you?’
“No, but it will be easier for him if he’s not dragged into this. It will be a sensational story and he and Mercy don’t need the exposure.”
Ivan cocked an eyebrow. “Sensational? A dog going crazy?”
“Ivan, don’t tell anyone this yet. The police are keeping it quiet until the family are informed. But the dog killed its owner last night.”
“Oh. Oh shit.”
“Yeah, so it’s going to get bigger.”
“And you’re protecting Hawkins and Mercy. So they are working together?”
She nodded. “They’re not doing anything wrong, really. But they want to stay hidden, so we’re not going to reveal them.”
“Not even to Mrs Veilchen?”
“Not even to Mrs Veilchen.”
Ivan sat back, contemplating that. “We’re so getting fired.”
“Maybe we could start our own agency.”
He smiled. “That would be fun.”
They chatted for a while longer. Ivan tried to pry more information about what had happened from her, but she wasn’t ready to say much more than she already had. Trying to figure out what she could safely reveal and not let him suspect there had been anything supernatural going on would be difficult. Dealing with the police had been bad enough and she’d had the excuse of being tired and bleeding. She didn’t look forward to the follow up interview the detective had threatened her with.
At last, her bag of blood dripped dry and the nurse came in to change it with a fresh one. Ivan went a little pale, kissed Erin’s cheek and left. She called out to him to go to the office and shut down the files on the case. He said he would then fled.
Her next visitor was the police, again, and she went through the events as best she could while omitting the presence of anyone else. She told them about the second gun, admitted it was her backup piece she hadn’t yet registered, suffered through the recriminations of ‘should have known better’ and accepted the fine.
Thankfully, her doctor came in and ordered them out. Then he insisted she rest while the last of the blood ran through. Not able to hold up a book with any sort of comfort, even if she’d had a book, Erin settled for watching TV. There was very little on of interest, being Sunday morning. They wouldn’t let her sleep while the blood was being transfused, something about adverse reactions they wouldn’t be able to detect if she wasn’t aware of them.
Which made her think about Matt and Mercy. His hurried, panicked talk of blood groups and what was best for the vampire. Her own, foolishly blurted admission. If she’d kept her mouth shut she wouldn’t be here now. She would be fine and able to answer all the questions the police could throw at her without an excuse to fend them off for another day or so. She would be able to go home and see William again, see him bound by restraints of illness, see him as a pale shadow of his former self and maybe she would get angry at the world for doing that to him and be unable to look at him anymore.
And maybe Mercy would be dead.
Vampires. Werewolves. And that meant the thing she’d seen driving the van during the drive-by shooting was probably not a deformed human. This was Matt Hawkins’ world and she could understand him wanting to keep it quiet. She picked up the business card he’d left her.
His mobile number was on the back, hand written. Another mystery as to why it wasn’t printed along with the rest of the details. A mystery Erin would let sit idle until she forgot all about him.
She put the card on the table beside the flowers and vowed that as soon as she’d passed his gun and fine back to him, she would destroy the card.
Not long later, the last bag of blood finished emptying into her body and the nurse came to take it down. A few not too minor changes later, and they hung a bag of intravenous antibiotics. This time Erin was allowed to sleep and she settled down.
She didn’t know what woke her, but the light in the room had changed, brightened with the afternoon sun coming in the window. Despite this unfettered wash of warmth, the room felt colder.
“You’re awake.”
Erin jumped, as much as she could with tubes trapping her in the bed.
Mrs Veilchen moved to the bedside. Two wardsmen stood in the doorway, their expressions glazed, shoulders slack, hands loose. The slender woman put a pale hand on Erin’s bandaged arm. Her touch was cool against the raw heat of the wound.
“What are you doing here?” Erin asked her.
“I went to your office,” she said, tone flat, sunglasses huge and round this close to Erin’s face. “Your… assistant was there.”
Erin jerked away from her hand. “If you touched him, I will—”
“He will be fine, eventually. I am not in the habit of leaving behind bodies where they can easily be found.” A small, chilly smile curved her white lips. “Forensics is coming along in leaps and bounds. It pays to be cautious. The boy-child told me you had closed my file. He was quite brave, actually. At first.”
The nurse-call buzzer was by Erin’s right hand. She reached for it, closed her hand aroun
d it. Veilchen was quick. Her long fingers wound around Erin’s hand and squeezed. Bones grinding together, Erin’s hand jerked open and dropped the buzzer. Veilchen moved her hold to it, and squeezed again. Broken plastic clattered to the floor.
“That’s enough of a token resistance,” Veilchen murmured. She leaned down over Erin, took in a deep breath. “You have a stranger’s blood in you. How delicious.”
Heart racing away with her thoughts, Erin stared dumbly at the woman. As she spoke, her teeth were shown. Nice, normal, perhaps a bit whiter than white, but not at all pointy.
“What do you want?” Erin asked, her voice painfully soft and nervous.
“I want you to tell me where Matthew Hawkins is. The boy-child did not know.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Veilchen stroked the side of Erin’s face. Her fingers left trails of cold along Erin’s skin, her nails scratching like a razor blade.
“I think you do. But he’s done something to you. I can’t get into your head. So we’re going to have to do it the other way.”
“The other way?”
Veilchen smiled again, but this time, she had two very long, very pointy teeth. “The hard way.”
